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130 out of 144 people found the following review useful:
Arguably one of the funniest films ever made, 6 June 2004

Author: MovieAddict2012 from UK

"Airplane!" is, was and always shall be the master of spoof movies. It is single-handedly responsible for literally inventing a sub-genre of comedy. It is the ultimate Silly Movie. A satire of the disaster movies of the 1970s, particularly the "Airport" series, nothing makes sense and it doesn't need to. There's no real plot. Just laughs - and plenty of 'em.

It was helmed by the ZAZ trio (Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker), whose dedication to making the audience laugh is surprisingly adamant. Recent spoofs may have left a bad aftertaste in your mouth, but it seems to be a universal agreement: "Airplane" is the funniest film of its genre ever made. (Closely followed by "The Naked Gun" - also penned by the ZAZ trio - perhaps.)

The plot: Ted Striker (Robert Hays) is a war veteran-turned-cab-driver who decides to chase after his girlfriend, an airline stewardess named Elaine (Julie Hagerty), who has dumped him in order to pursue a new life. Right before her plane takes off, Ted climbs aboard, hitching a ride in order to woo her back into a relationship again.

When the aircraft is in midflight, both pilots become very ill after eating their meals. Eventually many passengers begin to show symptoms of a rare disease, apparently transmitted by the food. Onboard, Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen) takes care of the sick passengers as Ted - an ex-fighter pilot from the war - decides to try and land the plane. If he messes up they will all die, and in a particularly funny scene, the pressure becomes so unbearable that he begins to literally sweat gallons in the cockpit.

That is essentially all the film is about, but most of its duration is spent cracking jokes. Spoof films are entirely different from other movies because normally we would criticize a film if it considered its plot to be the least important element. Not so here. This is a truly brainless piece of celluloid - a movie that doesn't try to be anything that it isn't. From the opening credits - that cleverly spoof "JAWS" - to the closing we realize that this is an altogether unique film going experience.

The movie's biggest laughs come through unexpected flashbacks, such as when Ted remembers where he first met Elaine in a crummy bar ("...it was worse than Detroit..."), and begins to disco-dance a la John Travolta from "Saturday Night Fever" (complete with Bee Gees soundtrack blaring in the background and the famous Travolta pose). Then, later, we are taken back to when Ted was hospitalized after the war, and finds out that he was responsible for the death of six men. "Seven, actually," he is informed, which adds to the pain of the moment for him.

Though this movie is very funny, many jokes misfire. If you're not pop culture savvy and you don't remember Mrs. Cleaver from TV's "Leave it to Beaver", the humor is going to go over your head. But unlike many comedies, "Airplane!" offers something unique for each person. I know that as a film lover, I picked up on many movie in-jokes that some people might not recognize. And then there were the gags that I first missed but picked up after a second viewing, or when someone explained them to me, or both. And I'm sure there are many yet that I'm not aware of. It seems that every time I watch it, there's something else to laugh at that I missed previously.

"Airplane!" not only was a huge success in 1980 (the year of its release), spinning off a horde of imitators and one sequel - it was also responsible for crowning Leslie Nielsen "The King of Spoof." Prior to "Airplane!" Nielsen had been a veteran of more serious productions, stemming back to playing cowboys on "The Mickey Mouse Club" and other embarrassing attempts at acting. However, Nielsen later claimed that he had always wanted to do a comedy, even when he first started acting seriously with projects such as the classic "Forbidden Planet" (one of the best science-fiction films ever made). He later reunited with the ZAZ trio for "The Naked Gun" trilogy, appeared in similar spoof films over the years such as "Wrongfully Accused" and "Scary Movie 3," and had his iconic comedy shtick ripped off by many screen veterans - most noticeably by George Gaynes in the unbearable "Police Academy" (1984).

When it comes down to a single evaluation, "Airplane" is simply the best spoof film ever made. It's like a MAD Magazine parody come to life. There are the occasional misfires, but unlike many other spoof film imitators, this one contains far more hits. The deadpan acting is genius and everything else fits into place, resulting in what may arguably be one of the absolute funniest films ever conceived and put on the big screen. And if you decide to watch the movie, don't blink - you might miss a gag or two. The "Police Academies" will come and go but "Airplane!" will never be forgotten.

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119 out of 132 people found the following review useful:
We have clearance, Clarence...., 15 August 1999

Author: Mister-6 from United States

It is my understanding that there are still a few people in the world that haven't seen "Airplane!" yet.

Those people probably are still waiting for electricity, indoor plumbing and all the other great advances in humanity, too.

To see "Airplane!" is to take part in the great move to subvert all self-importance in movies, which this film does with great relish (and plenty of corn).

You get a chance to see such "serious" actors as Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Leslie Nielsen subvert themselves and their own personnae into near oblivion thanks to the writing/directing team of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. Not to mention visual and verbal send-ups of darn near every movie that ever took place in the air, and a few that didn't, but should have.

Kudos to Leslie Nielsen, who with this movie gave himself the greatest reinvention of any actor this century. At one time, he was the very model of stoic sensibility.

I swear. Seriously.

A looooong time ago.

Ten stars. A laugh riot.

And I STILL think this would make a great in-flight movie.

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98 out of 106 people found the following review useful:
Still hilarious and fresh decades later, 28 November 2001
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

War pilot Ted Striker boards a flight for the first time since the war in order to stop his relationship with stewardess Elaine breaking up. Unfortunately the fish meal on the flight is bad and causes the crew to go sick leaving the plane on automatic pilot. With Striker the only man on board who can land the plane can he overcome his fears of failure stemming from the war? This without a doubt one of the best comedies of cinema, it is far and away the best spoof ever made - and it was made when this type of humour was still fresh. From the opening moments right down to the closing credits this is hilarious. The plot is a straight spoof of 1970's Airport disaster movies, and is only an excuse for a range of jokes. However the plot is bang on - it's detailed enough that it could be a serious disaster movie and allows the film to poke fun directly at the disasters movies themselves. The cast are perfect. For Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty this represents the best things they've ever done. Both play the straight men for the majority and are relied upon to take it all seriously and drive the plot while jokes occur all round them, that said they deliver many themselves but always straight faced. Nielsen and Bridges are also spot on as stereotypical doctor and traffic control guy who "chose the wrong day to give up drinking"! They are both so straight faced that they make the whole thing seem even more silly. Robert Stack is excellent as the man brought in to talk the plane down, playing the butch masculine figure ignoring all the madness around him. Also on the ground, Stephen Stucker is great as the camp controller who delivers many brilliant one liners as he walks through scenes. Peter Graves and Kareen Abdul Jabbar are great as two of the pilots that almost are in a different movie the things they say! The film is a spot on spoof of disaster movies, making fun of the many clichés of the genre - the nuns on board, the sick child, the "only man who can land the plane", the poisoned food etc. But it does more than just poke fun at these - it is hilarious in it's own right. All the cast deliver their lines brilliantly and the script! The script is excellent - I'm not going to start listing lines but they come so thick and fast that you usually miss something because you're laughing at the last joke.

This is the mould for all spoofs - this is the one to beat. While many spoofs are hit and miss this is almost a total hit. Decades on and many viewings later this is still as fresh and as funny as it ever was. A brilliant, brilliant comedy!

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87 out of 99 people found the following review useful:
The original spoof classic!, 7 May 2003

Author: Michael DeZubiria (miked32@hotmail.com) from Luoyang, China

Unfortunately, Airplane! has been, for me, one of those comedies that I have seen so many times in the video store that its appeal has gradually worn down to almost nothing, resulting in a total absence of interest in renting it. I eventually watched it one day because I worked at the video store and could rent movies for free, and was continuing on my desperate attempt to watch every movie in the store (a goal which continues to this day, although by now I've come to realize that it's never going to happen). During my quest, by the way, I also saw the old 1970 film Airport, probably ten years after having seen parts of Airplane!, and realized that this is one of the many movies that inspired Airplane!

In general, I'm a little cautious about movies that have exclamation points in the titles, but Airplane! is without a doubt one of the funniest movies ever made. Consider, for example, those little montages that studios sometimes put together and put at the beginning of movies when they come out on videotape, honoring the great movies that the studio has made in the past. They show lots of memorable clips from their old movies (and I always write all of these titles down, determined to watch them all, and then promptly lose the list that I made) to remind you how great they are. I had a good time watching Airplane! and picking out how many scenes are in the movie that can and do go into those memorable montages.

Airplane! is made up of a series of hilarious scenes that string together a thin shoestring plot, which ironically speaks in the movie's defense. In general, movies with weak stories that are driven along by comedic stunts and pranks and whatnot tend to be pretty weak, but Airplane! is not driven by stunts to cover a weak story as much as the quality of the stunts and the slapstick comedy is so good that they overshadow everything else. It's interesting to watch someone like Robert Stack so many years ago and see that he looked and talked exactly like he did in Unsolved Mysteries so many years later, a show the seriousness of which boggles the mind, given that it's hosted by someone who did so well in a movie like this one.

My favorite thing about this movie is, obviously, the huge amount of sound bytes that comes from it, just the cleverness of the way it was written and put together. You have the main character's `drinking problem,' the airport announcers (`Listen, Betty, don't start up with your white zone sh*t again…'), the stress of the people investigating the situation on the plane (`Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking/drinking/amphetamines.'), the plays on words (`There's a problem at the control tower!' `What is it?' `It's the big tower where the air traffic controllers talk to the planes.'), that one airport employee who was suspiciously bubbly and excited throughout the entire movie (while providing some of its best comedy), and then of course were the situational gags, such as Robert Stack pulling off his sunglasses to reveal another pair underneath (arguably the most famous scene in the entire film).

This is a movie where a list like this could go on and on, and I'm sure if you go to the memorable quotes page on the IMDb you'll find a gigantic list of hilarious quotes from the movie there. It is no secret that this is something of a childish and immature comedy, but it is smartly written and has so many great scenes and bits of dialogue that it's one of those rare movies that makes you want to take notes so you won't forget a lot of the lines. It is one of the earlier versions of Leslie Nielsen's spoofs, a genre in itself which went on to tremendous success with lots of great (and some not so great) spoofs to follow.

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69 out of 81 people found the following review useful:
the greatest comedy of all time, 30 March 2005

Author: the-jerk from Newark, DE

Airplane is simply the funniest movie of all time. It handles the broad range of parody, satire, and plain silliness expertly, and has some of the greatest one-liners and sight gags ever put in a movie. Sure some of the jokes are dated, but great comedies (especially parodies) exist in the moment, and you have to expect that. The fact is, enough jokes hit the bullseye that it really is one of those rare movies where you are laughing constantly. I am, at least. This movie launched Leslie Nielsen's career as a comedy actor, although he still hasn't made anything this good (Naked Gun comes closest, but it's still light years away from this). Do any movies come close to hitting the zenith that this one does? "Young Frankenstein" comes close, but even the best Mel Brooks film doesn't top this. There has simply never been a funnier movie than "Airplane!" and for that, it deserves to be considered one of the greatest MOVIES of all time (I know for many people that's a stretch, but I stand by it; I've been watching it my whole life and there's still nothing I flat-out enjoy watching more).

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37 out of 41 people found the following review useful:
An Undoubted Classic, 15 January 2005

Author: mjw2305 from England

Still one of funniest spoof movies ever made, Airplane is one of the first and one of the best around.

Hot Shots, Loaded Weapon even Naked Gun have tried to follow in its footsteps, but they have failed to hit the mark. That's not to say that they are bad movies, just that its difficult to follow a movie of this calibre.

Spoof movies definitely have there place in everyone's collection, but this is probably the best you'll ever see in the genre, if you have never seen it and you fancy a laugh, I can't recommend a better film, even though it has dated; it's still hilarious 9/10

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42 out of 52 people found the following review useful:
A hilarious gem!, 13 March 2003

Author: mattymatt4ever from Jersey City, NJ

This is voted as one of the funniest comedies of all time, and it deserves that honor! The film is filled with hilarious gags! Sure, in every one of these campy farces, there's usually a few gags that are way too silly. In this case, it was the "drinking problem" gag and that annoying gay man who works on Lloyd Bridges' staff. But when I can actually count on my hand how many gags didn't work, that's a good sign. The majority of the film sent me into a frenzy of laughter! One of my favorites is when the blow-up auto-pilot runs out of air and Julie Hagerty blows it back up again. You'll have to see the movie to find out why it was so hilarious! I also got a great kick out of the running gag in which every passenger who listens to Robert Hays ends up killing themselves. This is definitely the Zuckers and Abrahams in top form! Unfortunately, I haven't seen a great spoof in years. The "Scary Movie" films were pretty good, but incredibly lewd and crude. And obviously the Zuckers and Abrahams have much better eyes for satire than the Wayans brothers. I caught "Scary Movie" on cable and watched it a second time, and I didn't laugh nearly as many times as I did the first time. I can watch "Airplane" 200 times and still laugh like there's no tomorrow! The film was made back when comedies didn't go strictly for sex and toilet gags to make an audience laugh. This was back when writers used to employ this quality called "wit." "Kentucky Fried Movie" had some racy gags, but even those were witty for the most part. There is a certain rhythm in every gag that helps make the film work. For example, Lloyd Bridges starts out by saying "I think I picked the wrong day to quit smoking." Then he says he picked the wrong day to quit drinking. And when he finally says "I picked the wrong day to quit amphetamines," I was laughing my head off! So basically, you watch a film like this and feel the urge to mail a copy of the video to the Wayans Brothers and whatever crackheads wrote "Not Another Teen Movie," along with a note saying "THIS is how to make a spoof!"

There are so many other gags worth mentioning, including the "Saturday Night Fever" sendup, which is definitely one of the best comic moments caught on film! That scene also contains my favorite line: "I told the guy next to me to pinch me to make sure I wasn't dreaming." After that voice-over, we see the guy next to Robert Hays repulsed and walking away from him. Another great example of perfect comic timing and delivery!

If you want to get some authentic belly laughs--I'm not talking chuckles, but actual LAUGHS!--you must check out "Airplane." Trust me, movies don't get much more original or funny than this!

My score: 9 (out of 10)

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33 out of 40 people found the following review useful:
"I am serious... and don't call me Shirley.", 13 February 2005

Author: Ryan from King of Prussia, PA

In a tense moment where Ted Striker (Robert Hays) needs to land an airplane where the pilots (Peter Graves and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) have fallen sick, and several passengers need to get off the airplane for various reasons, all Striker can think to himself (with an echo in his mind, of course) is "I've got to concentrate... concentrate... concentrate... I've got to concentrate... concentrate... concentrate... Hello?... hello... hello... Echo... echo... echo... Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon... Manny Mota... Mota... Mota..." That pretty much sums up the seriousness of Airplane!, the lampoon of the 1970s Airport movies, and pretty much every other disaster movie pumped out by Hollywood. The same guys who pieced together the Naked Gun movies write and direct this silly movie. Most of the jokes need to be seen to be properly experienced, the first rate actors are what brings the laughs. Robert Stack plays it straight, over-the-top straight, as a problem solver for the airline who happens to wear 2 pairs of sunglasses at all times. Stack's comedic timing and deadpan delivery bring out some of the biggest laughs of the film. Lloyd Bridges is the over-worked, over-stressed traffic controller who has picked the wrong week to stop drinking, smoking, and sniffing glue. And Leslie Neilson plays a doctor who has an acute sense for the obvious, surely one who could save the passengers and airline crew if they land safely, just don't call him Shirley. A few cheap laughs, a few misses, but over all, a pretty funny movie. If you like The Naked Gun, you'll like Airplane!

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33 out of 41 people found the following review useful:
One of the best all-time, roll with laughter movies!, 31 January 2005

Author: jif91 from United States

If you really need a good laugh out loud movie, to make you feel good, this is one of them! The 1st time we saw this movie, on cable, not long after it came out, we were rolling with laughter! This movie was one of the all-time best, with Lloyd Bridges, and that crazy air traffic controllers' scenes were the funniest. With every line of the movie having a comeback, and another meaning--this movie ranks up there with the pool scene in Caddyshack as one of the best--you're rolling with laughter! With Lloyd Bridges slowly going insane throughout the movie, with an all-star cast including Robert Hayes,very funny, they even had Ethel Merman doing a cameo, (not long before her death), it was hilarious. Even the sequel came out to be as good as the original.

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25 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
"It's an Entirely Different Kind of Flying.", 3 August 2005

Author: nycritic

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Only the writing/directing team of Jerry and David Zucker and Jim Abrahams could conceive of spoofing a film like ZERO HOUR! while sticking pretty close to its source and garner a smash hit. It's a shame they didn't do more spoofs, or that their output has been rather infrequent, resulting in each of this team making their own movies with varying degrees of success, since there is so much material out there to rip apart from.

Here, it's the fear of flying. That any flight could encounter problems either from the weather or from machinery is nothing new -- it happens, plain and simple. That a shot of the flight depicted here as it flies dangerously close to the Chicago skyline probably won't give anyone a 9/11 jolt nowadays, but the undertone is there. There is a fear of planes, and this movie takes that specific fear and turns it inside out with hysterical results from the opening shot to the closing credits.

Using the premise of ZERO HOUR and the AIRPORT franchise, AIRPLANE brings Ted Stryker, a man who has a neurotic fear of failure and is a war veteran, gets on a plane to get back with his estranged girlfriend Elaine, a stewardess on the flight. That he tells his "tragic" tale to not one, but three people (all who commit suicide) is one of the many laugh-out-loud sequences, but some danger actually ensues when the meals are served and those who have eaten fish fall ill, and this includes the pilots. With no one left to fly this plane, Ted is called into duty and guided by Captain Kramer (whom he hates) he has to fly the plane to safety.

This is, essentially, the bare-bones of the plot. The real stars of the movie are the incessant, mile a minute visual, referential, and verbal jokes that assault the viewer faster than he or she can register. References to classic movies, soap operas, commercials from the 70s ("Jim never drinks a second cup of coffee at home..."), pedophilia, basketball, voice recordings that guide people through airports, outrageous takes on characters from the very movies they are spoofing; in short, nothing is spared here, and it makes for a relentlessly funny movie.

That the actors play it straight makes AIRPLANE even funnier. It's as if they weren't sure as to what exactly were they doing and were trying these waters out on a lark; luckily for them that it paid because not only it made David Zucker's, Jerry Zucker's, and Jim Abrahams' career, it also brought back Leslie Nielsen into the limelight as a deadpan funny man who could deliver ridiculous lines as if it were the real thing. Its success was so evident that it spawned an inferior remake, a slew of similar-toned movies, many of them directed by the Zucker-Zucker-Abrahams team, together or separately. This, however, remains as the spoof movie to watch, the one all spoof movie should measure itself to, and one of the funniest comedies of all time.

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